Articles in the 'B2B Marketing' Category
Patience and Persistence – A Powerful Combination in Marketing
As has been stated in works ranging from the Bible to the Beatles, there is a time for every purpose. Sometimes the best course is to persist and push through the obstacle and sometimes the best course is to apply a little dose of patience. Here are some examples of when to practice persistence.
Be persistent in setting goals for your marketing programs. Better yet, make them intentions. How many unique visitors will you have at your website? How many inquires
10 Minutes to Better B2B Marketing
I was attending a fitness class at my health club this past weekend and the instructor was talking about how full the club was in early January and how many of the people were “New Year’s resolution” exercisers who would probably be absent within a month. He said that many people have noble intentions and set major goals, but they take an approach bound for failure, by overdoing it in the early stages – for example, exercising every day for
A Dozen B2B Marketing Mantras for 2012
The Fusion Marketing Partners team got together last week to do our year end recap and strategize plans for 2012. The bottom line is that we had a good year. As part of the discussion, we talked about some guiding principles (mantras) for how we will conduct business in 2012. Here is a sampling that might give you some ideas for improvement in the coming year.
Focus on the three marketing measurements that probably matter most to your organization: boosting awareness, generating leads
Attention to “Detale” is Crucial in B2B Marketing
With apologies to my excellent English teachers over the years, the headline of this post illustrates why attention to detail is so important in marketing. All of us make mistakes, and I have made many. But keep in mind the old carpenter’s expression, “It is better to measure twice and cut once.” Likewise, it is always better to prevent mistakes in the first place, as opposed to correcting them after the fact. We practice this at Fusion Marketing Partners and
Intentional Marketing Beats I’ll Try Marketing
Do you want to make a big difference in your B2B marketing and sales performance? If so, adopt the practice of “intending” instead of “trying”.
Most of the time, when I ask a marketing manger to do something, I get an answer like the following:
I’ll try to find you the information you need to make this campaign work.
I’ll try to generate some leads.
I’ll try to help the sales force make their sales targets.
You get the picture. The common thread is the
Does Your Marketing Produce Accolades or Action?
MCI was a powerful company in the 1990s. And while MCI was known for producing very cool advertising – unfortunately, the business results never seemed to match the messaging “creativity.” This is just one example – how about the many $1 million plus Super Bowl ads that have produced a lot of attention but virtually no results. Some of these advertisers were start-up companies that wasted their entire promotional budgets on just one advertisement. Clever yes… effective, no. Good marketing…hardly.
Perhaps the
How Marketing Can Double the Effectiveness of Your Sales Force
I was talking to a former colleague yesterday and she made the claim that as a marketer, she had no control over the sales process and little or any impact on revenue. Regardless of whether this is true at her particular company, B2B marketers should (and do) have substantial impact on sales revenue. In fact, there are many instances where upgrading the marketing function can bring a much larger boost to the top line than hiring more sales people.
To put this
How to “Engineer” a Marketing Fiasco
Here’s the all-too-common scenario: A team of highly skilled engineers rolls out a product that passes beta and actually starts to get some traction (usually through networking with people they already know). Encouraged by their first few orders, the company promotes those engineers or product developers to fill the marketing and sales roles. Who better to sell the product than the person who built it? Besides, the product is so good, it will sell itself, right?
We have seen a few companies
Who is Sitting in the Marketing Chair? – A Quick Marketing Leadership Assessment
My partner, Myron Berg, and I were recently discussing how what we do at Fusion Marketing Partners benefits our clients. While we can always be depended on to produce results in terms of awareness, leads and revenue, it struck us that we also deliver an intangible with a huge benefit: peace of mind. After all, today’s CEO has a great many things to worry about, including product, personnel, systems, and finance. The list goes on. Removing the marketing issue from
B2B Marketing Mottos to Avoid
Let’s call these the Dirty Dozen – 12 things you don’t want to say (or have said) about your marketing operation. Over my long career in B2B marketing I have heard a variation of all of the following:
We are clueless but hope to have an answer someday.
Buy from us because we really need the money.
My job is on the line. Can you purchase today instead of next quarter?
Who needs leads when you have a phone book?
Yes, our website is lousy,
